Brewmasters, a co-op, students and professors rallied together to bring a celebrated craft beer brewmaster William Frank from Graubelle Bryghus together with Black Star Co-op Pub & Brewery’s award- winning Brewmaster Jeff Young to co-create a new product using an old brew recipe adding a local twist.

Who is Black Star? Check out this article describing Black Star Co-op as a popular local Austin hot spot! The austinot.com highlights Black Star Co-op as a celebrated business in Austin, Texas . If you are from Austin, it is highly unlikely you have not heard about Black Star’s success. But, if you don’t know about this pub and brewery you should hurry and get yourself there right away to enjoy their great dog- friendly patio deck with the super chilled Austin ambiance, that is completely convenient the next time you make your way on the Capital Austin Metro Railway.

Black Star Co-op (Austin) and Graubelle Bryghus (Denmark) were there to support local and international students to ask questions and learn more about international business models, co-ops, sustainable business practices, brewing products and social media strategy.These brewers genuinely practiced what they preach and they held a mini- conference with other local brewers to discuss sustainable brewing practices. See image below.

A Business Collaboration

The project was spearheaded by Black Star Co-op Pub & Brewery’s award- winning Brewmaster Jeff Young, Denmark’s award-winning Graubelle Bryghus’s Brewmaster William Frank, in partnership with Professor Jill Brockmann and Erhvervsakademi Aarhus . Here is a pic of the visionaries, innovators and supporters coming together (one who even crossed oceans) for a successful international collaboration between 2 small businesses (or a co-op) to help students to create an enriched social media learning experience. This picture was obtained during a conference held with other local brewers to discuss sustainable brewing practices.

The Student Collaboration

The student project was set in motion to help co-create a unique, new but limited hand- crafted brew by designing social media platforms to amplify the collaboration, videos, and a mock label for the product. The project permitted international students to collaborate with American students to develop a social media strategy in “real-time.”

At the time, this was the first kind of international student partnership with a local business ( or co-op) with both American and Danish students. The students were tasked with creating a social media strategy to amplify the collaboration of a new product as an international team.

Collaborative Culture Logo

A logo was designed for the project by Professor Jill Brockmann and local students. Then the teams were assembled and the research began!

Collaborative Culture logo created by Professor Jill Brockmann and students for an international student collaboration.

An International Student Collaboration

Students collaborated internationally via Google Hangouts, emails and a Facebook group to coördinate and create a content strategy. Student challenges included overcoming language barriers, cultural differences, geography and international time gaps.

Students collaborated with both brew houses to co-design a mock product label that promoted the product launch, but also sought to promote awareness about co-ops, sustainable business practices and the value of collaboration in business by bringing two international businesses, students, and two audiences together from entirely separate continents.

Three teams for content strategy were designated and each team had both American and Danish students participating . The student teams held friendly competitions for the honor of developing a candidate name for the new hand- crafted beer by making some entertaining promotional videos.

Student Video Competition

Check out the videos the students collaborated on below.

The videos were created by Danish students with input from local students in Austin who offered research about local demographics and the local brew culture in Austin.

Let’s send a collaborative “Dark Moor Brew” shout out to our Danish friends and video contributors Torben Hansen, Jesper Korsbakke,Thomas Kjaer, Emil Brauer, Rasmus Ravnested, Mickey Gee, and their professor, Ulrich Bisgaard for all of their great work on the winning video!

(A close runner up! The brew recipe did in fact come across the ocean from Denmark!)

Entry #2 Dark Moor video won the competition, but entry #1 was definitely a contender and totally hilarious! We named the new brew “Dark Moor” in honor of the team who won the video competition. and the social media strategy was in motion for the new product branding.

The social media strategy was in full motion for branding the product “Dark Moor!”

Pinterest

The content on the Pinterest page was devoted to the international collaboration as well as to sustainable business practices, co-ops and the collaborative economy.

Facebook Page

I was also designated as one of the administrators for the Collaborative Culture Facebook page creating many of the posts and creating the majority of the photos.

Images by Duane Pool for Collaborative Culture’s Facebook page highlighting a collaboration between celebrated brewmasters from Austin and Denmark to create Dark Moor in cooperation with social media/ marketing students from Austin and Denmark.

Dark Moor Launch

As you can see, Black Star Coop has great food, great beer, great ambiance and plenty of smiling faces! On December 17th, 2013 Dark Moor was launched- A Limited Edition!

Brewmaster William Frank of Grauballe Bryghus, Denmark with Professor Jill Brockmann, Austin at Black Star Co-op during the release of Dark Moor.

Facebook Event

Facebook Event for the release of Dark Moor, a collaborative venture between The Black Star Co-op Brewery (Austin, TX) and Graubelle Bryghus (Denmark) supported by local and international social media and marketing students and their local businesses and co-op.

Collaborative Culture Twitter account was established for the international collaboration.

WordPress

The website for the project was not officially completed due to time constraints for the project. Our website, CollaborativeCulture.com is still under construction. It was an ambitious project to complete in two months roughly.

A website dedicated to collaborations of all kinds, it’s relationship to the sharing economy, sustainable business practices and all things co-op.

Partnering for Global Success

This is a demonstration of a successful co-collaboration between local and international businesses and a commitment to educational partnering that offers students an enriched learning environment to learn about social media strategy in real-time. In addition, students learn about alternative business models such as co-ops, sustainable business practices and the values associated with collaboration and sharing. A very special thanks to all partners and supporters of the collaboration and for their contributions to the project.This is what can be accomplished when there is a commitment to raise awareness about sustainable business practices, ecology, and the benefits of partnering with education and the community.

Partnership in education and collaborative projects between international businesses prepare students for being successful in a global community.

I hope to see more collaborations like this in the future for the benefit of education.

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Hugh Lashbrooke

Austin’s Social Media Solopreneur

Social Media: Skillful Means
Welcome to my blog dedicated to the practical application of social media strategy.